


Tangential Results of a Standard Investigation

by BlushingNewb



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Kink Discovery, Lingerie, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, So Married
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-08
Updated: 2016-07-08
Packaged: 2018-07-22 09:37:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7430509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlushingNewb/pseuds/BlushingNewb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some bits of evidence left over from a case result in Sherlock considering an entirely new line of inquiry. He and John conduct an investigation together that ends in complete success.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tangential Results of a Standard Investigation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [221b_hound](https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/gifts).



> I'm not trying to give too much of a spoiler, but this story contains a moment of what seems to be kink-shaming, but it is actually a miscommunication. And 221b_hound, this is for you. I love everything you write, and thank you for sharing your talents.
> 
> Beta work done by an unnamed source. Thank you so much - your help is truly appreciated.

To everyone’s relief, the dog was well on his way to recovery and a family member had enthusiastically agreed that he could come to live with her.

The man’s strangling hadn’t been humorous in the least, but there had been a small amount of amusement to be gained from the behavior of his adolescent black Labrador. The canine in question had unfortunately consumed a number of non-food objects, and Sherlock was the first to point out his sluggish behavior and apparent discomfort at the crime scene.

Surgery revealed a number of partly-digested random objects in his stomach: three Scrabble tiles, the squeaker from a toy, two tie-wraps from bread loaves, the cap from a tube of lip-balm and, most significantly, a pair of women’s designer panties. The cloth had been the most recently consumed item, and it had to have been eaten within the last twenty-four hours, which was well within the timeline in which the murder had been committed.

The man’s own diary recorded his affairs with three different women, who instantly became the prime suspects in his murder. But evidence gathered from the belongings of all of the women could yield no further information. Dog hair was present at all of the women’s homes, and none of them possessed any lingerie that matched the evidence from the dog’s gastric system. Any of the women were capable of drugging the man with his own sleeping pills and smothering him with a pillow. Each of the women - though vastly different in appearance otherwise - wore the same size of panty.

But Sherlock knew that the knickers were the key to cracking the case. After viewing the evidence firsthand he had determined their fiber composition and overall pattern. He bought dozens of pairs of women’s underwear from London’s most prestigious salons and compared manufacturing styles; he and John sorted through catalogs from the last two years, and finally, Sherlock was able to narrow down the designer of the panty in question. Their greatest stroke of luck was that the pair of knickers had not been created with a matching brassiere in mind and were therefore even easier to identify. From there, it was only a matter of time before he was able to determine the stores in London that had sold this particular garment and when. The panty had only been in stock for two months, and the footage from the handful of stores revealed that at the height of the season, it was the man’s colleague from work who had made the purchase, along with a pair of shoes.

When confronted with the evidence, she confessed, and, while she demonstrated no remorse for killing her philandering lover, she did exhibit sympathy for “the poor dog who had been through so much.”

John spent some time (too much time, in Sherlock’s opinion) thinking of a witty title for the blog write-up. Finally he settled on “Under the Surface, Wear Deception Lurks,” which Sherlock hated but everyone else loved. The investigation was complete, the criminal caught, and justice would be served.

But, as frequently happened in 221b, objects that once held relevance to a case stayed in the location where they had been dropped due to the indifference of the flat’s inhabitants. Which is why a quantity of women’s panties still occupied a prominent place on their coffee table in a tiny mountain of shimmering silk and delicate lace.

* * *

Sherlock was stretched out on the couch feeling rather contented with himself. The five types of moulds that he was cultivating were developing nicely and John had praised him both for their unusual appearance and for the healthful containment of the specimens. It warmed Sherlock’s heart that John was pleased _and_ that he had missed the control group that was already fully grown inside the top-most cupboard. Those were contained rather less safely than the others but were mostly harmless.

Soon, though, Sherlock found his fingers itching. When this happened, his first instinct was to reach for his violin, but Sherlock’s violin was in the shop being restrung. Another option, skimming the newspapers for prospective cases, was quickly exhausted when he saw nothing but articles about the American election and sport. Sherlock immediately reached under the couch, fumbling for the packet of cigarettes he had sellotaped there in case of an emergency. He was extremely put out to realize that the pack, though still in its original place, had been emptied, doubtless as a result of John’s dedication in support of Sherlock’s mission to remain tobacco-free. Unable to vent his frustration to John, who was at the clinic, Sherlock kicked his bare feet against the sofa arm.

As he exerted himself, sunlight hit the pile of fabric sitting on the table and glinted off a sapphire blue pair of French-cut briefs. Sherlock eyed them - satin, laces woven from cotton and silk. They had a meticulous pattern reminiscent of the panties extracted from the dog but were not created by the same designer. That case had been over several weeks ago, and Sherlock had taken on several more since then, but he was stirred to touch the garment once again. He had made a study of the tensile strengths of various yarns, but was not familiar with the combined sensations upon the skin of lace, satin, cotton, tulle, nylon and microfiber. Sherlock had nothing but positive associations with silk, though; he adored the feeling of his dressing gowns sliding over his bare skin, and over John. And, oh, when he was able to manipulate circumstances so that John had to wear Sherlock’s own robe, or any of his garments at all...he loved to see John that way, covered with Sherlock, knowing that he was wrapped in the luxurious fibres that he had chosen for himself. John deserved to have the most luscious of fabrics hugging the skin of his beautiful body.

In a contemplative mood, Sherlock picked up the pair of knickers that had reflected the sunlight so well. They were as soft as they appeared, and the lace at the hips, rather than being prickly like his mother’s spring season tablecloth, stretched smoothly over his knuckles. How was it that the fine lace was constructed with enough strength to hold the rest of the plain satin over the groin and buttocks? Sherlock thought of the refinement of the sewing machinery that had allowed for the clever construction of the briefs, and the human ingenuity that had gone into the design, and he silently applauded them on their achievement.

Sherlock slid the knickers over his hands and acknowledged their tactual appeal. He considered the traditional uses and purposes for lingerie - to reveal and hide at the same time in order to titillate the viewer - and unsurprisingly, given that women were not and never had been his area, he had found himself neither captivated nor repelled by the images from the catalog that he had reviewed with John. John, though. John’s cheeks had coloured a bit when he saw Sherlock gather up the panties in his arms, but nothing had ever been said about it. Sherlock’s thoughts strayed to John’s telltale signs of arousal with fondness, and he smiled while he fingered the slippery lace. How would the fabric feel as he rubbed it over John’s skin, while John’s skin was underneath the fabric and Sherlock ran his fingers over it?

The idea struck Sherlock like a bolt of lightning from the sky. His John, wearing the knickers, with those delicate fibres against the areas where Sherlock loved to touch _rub taste smell look_ the most. John, his genitals covered with cloth that Sherlock had hand-picked for its ability to both cunningly conceal and expose his lover. All for Sherlock, all for him to appreciate.

* * *

“The cut best suited to you, I think, would be what is considered a bikini or ‘cheeky.’ Your bum would fill the entire pant if it’s properly tailored, with just a hint of cleavage. I would of course take that opportunity to run my tongue along it, you know, the way that makes you wriggle and let out that squeak, yes, you do, too, John! But I don’t want to get sidetracked here. I reckon that the best style, the one that will feel the best on you, is one that positions a triangle of cloth right over your cock. Can you imagine how decadent the silk would feel as you harden? Then, when you begin to leak, it would be so gentle over your slit when I run my fingertip over it. There should be lace on either side, that way I could tease at it while I suck you through the cloth. There’s nothing I want more, though, than to see your cock grow out of the waistband. God, the color of it, the smell of it … to taste it after it’s been covered by silk, then by my tongue over the silk, and then by my tongue alone. I lied about what I want most, though, I’m sorry. I really want to make you come while you’re wearing them, I don't care how, but it’s important that your semen stain…”

A loud thud came from the direction of the kitchen and Sherlock realized a great many things at once, namely, that he was staring at a pile of panties on their coffee table, that he had been in the midst of a discussion with himself, and that he had an erection.

Sherlock quickly rearranged himself on the sofa so that he was sitting far away from the edge and attempted to cross his legs, wincing slightly. John picked up the tin of beans he had dropped and placed it gently on their table before walking back into their sitting room, still holding a grocery bag.

“So …” John began. Sherlock looked at a space just to left of his face and as far away from the lingerie pyramid as possible.

“You know, I’ve heard you think aloud about toxic morels of Ireland, the various grades of sandpaper and the differences they produce in flesh abrasions, necrotizing fasciitis, the things that quicksand cannot ever do, and a case you solved using two brass candlesticks. But this, er, this is the first time …” John foundered, “this is the first time I’ve walked in to you, er, talking dirty.”

As soon as Sherlock stared down at his hands, John began protesting, “no, no, I’m not upset, please don’t think that. It’s just  … different. And it’s, well, no, I’m not ... I’m…”

Sherlock looked up at his lover and noticed him shifting from one foot to the other; yes, John was aroused, too.

“Here, now,” John said, placing the groceries on the floor. “I’ve got some dusting to do upstairs, so I’ll see you in a bit when I come back down and put these away.”

John was leaving. _Wait_ , Sherlock thought, _why was he leaving?_ Oh! John believed that Sherlock needed some privacy to masturbate, so he was making a flimsy excuse to tidy his old room.

“No, it’s not that, it’s -” Sherlock stood. “Well, I didn’t mean for it to happen like this,” he said, and John’s mouth twitched as he attempted not to laugh.

“Was it actually something you wanted to share with me? Something for later... or for now?” John said, lowering his voice on the last few words.

The pictures that Sherlock had conjured in his mind, the imagined sensations of exploring the lingerie as it covered his John’s skin were so fresh, so vibrant and so tempting, that the words, “I’d like you to wear knickers for me,” fell out of his mouth entirely without his permission.

Sherlock froze, as did John. He lifted a finger to the hill of frippery with both eyebrows raised as high as they could possibly go.

“You want me to wear that?!” John’s words dripped with indignation and revulsion, and they stung Sherlock to his core. Hurt welled up from under his gut - he had never heard such scorn in John’s voice - but before he could open his mouth to concoct a denial or, failing that, a scathing insult invented out of desperation, he realized that John was still talking.

“---lock, I can’t wear those, c’mon! Aren’t there sites or stores where you can buy them made for men? So that your meat-and-two-veg aren’t squashed up? Those are for _women_ ,” John pointed out, as if that wasn’t apparent to the most casual of observers.

Sherlock blinked. And then blinked some more. He shook his head, and casting off the despair that had begun to settle over his chest, he replied with some trepidation.

“You object ... based on comfort? Not on the fact that such apparel is associated with femininity, passivity? And suggestive of emasculation?”

John chuckled. “Love, nothing I’ve done in the bedroom has ever made me feel girly, so I doubt this would be the thing that does it. When I was fourteen I had to wear Harry’s underwear on a camping trip because my bag fell off the roof of the car. I was miserable because they squeezed me the entire time, and I felt like I couldn’t even sit down! When we got home I went without pants for weeks. Besides…” John added, giving Sherlock an appraising look, “I really, really liked watching you looking through those panties. Just … your long, beautiful fingers, turning them over in your hands, holding them up to the light, bringing them up to your face   … fucking hell, Sherlock, I’m surprised you didn’t notice.”

John walked over to take Sherlock’s hand. “Would you like to tell me about your ideas?” John asked gently. “Are there things we could, I dunno, maybe talk about with a tailor or something?”

Sherlock swallowed several times and felt John staring at him, but he still couldn’t meet his eyes. John, still holding his hand, came to sit beside him, and he massaged Sherlock’s knee through his trousers.

“I want to hear more of what you were saying when I came in,” John said, and when Sherlock finally turned to meet his eyes, John licked his lips and settled a single hand at the apex of Sherlock’s thighs, cupping him with an open palm. Sherlock pushed up into that exquisite pressure, and with a great sense of relief in more ways than one, let the words tumble off his tongue.

* * *

Several days later, after multiple fittings, comparisons of styles from the internet and compilations of Sherlock’s ideas, John had what he considered to be a sufficient array of lingerie, regardless of Sherlock’s views on the matter that there could never be a surfeit of such things. It wasn't something he had planned on for himself but, John conjectured, life with Sherlock was full of surprises, just like the man himself. Besides, all the shopping had given John _ideas_.

Sherlock had watched him take the bags from Soho into their room with great interest, and got up eagerly from his chair to follow John with predatory intent when his mobile chimed. John stashed the bags and came out to see him beaming and holding out John’s coat for him.

“Well, what’ll it be?” John asked, still enchanted by the exuberance that a mystery could induce in his lover.

“It’s a missing horse, John,” Sherlock said, which explained right away his interest in the case. Sherlock had enjoyed his childhood riding lessons, in spite of the fact that it was not an activity at which he excelled, and he had a great fondness for both dogs and horses. “I think I know where he’s at,” Sherlock continued, “and the Yard is totally wrong as usual. Oh, and the groom was murdered,” Sherlock added as an afterthought.

John frowned at him, and Sherlock made haste to add, “the act of which is truly unacceptable and the perpetrator must be brought to justice, of course.”

The knickers were quickly forgotten by Sherlock in his haste to solve the puzzle. However, thought John fondly, _he himself_ was never dismissed from Sherlock’s thoughts these days, and that thought warmed his heart by the day and by the hour.  

* * *

Sherlock had a flair for the dramatic presentation of himself, making the flurry of his swirling coat seem natural and the dance-like gesticulations of his hands appear automatic. John knew that he didn’t have Sherlock’s grace for movement, but he did feel confident in his sense of timing.

Which is why, several days after the Silver Blaze case, John attired himself in Sherlock’s blue robe immediately after taking a morning shower. It clung to his damp body, and when he strode into the kitchen with it only half-tied and the sleeves rolled up, Sherlock took one look at him and dropped his plate of fried eggs.

“You, did you put on…?” John was delighted when he could reduce Sherlock to sentence fragments. “Are you wearing all of it? The things we talked about?”

“I suppose you’ll have to find out,” John said, and, while he didn’t twirl to make the fabric of the robe flutter about him, his abrupt turn ensured that it trailed behind him on the floor in a voluminous tease that showed nothing but hinted at everything.

John positioned himself on the center of the bed with the robe wrapped around him, and moments later Sherlock was grasping him nearly as tightly as the robe, pushing his plush lips to John’s and nibbling needily. He ran his hands over the silk on John’s chest, then thrust one hand up a sleeve to squeeze at his bicep. Sherlock’s hot, heavy breath made John’s neck shiver while he fumbled his thumbs down to tug at the belt of the robe, which John had purposefully tied with only a loose knot. Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut as he trailed his hand down and let out a deep groan when he felt slick fabric covering John’s hips and groin. He pressed his forehead against John’s and hooked a finger to snap the elastic of the waistband. Sherlock’s mouth fell open against John’s cheek and his tentative explorations quickly turned to groping.

“I don’t know where to start,” Sherlock whispered, “it feels so perfect on you. I’m almost afraid to look, because I know it’s going to be better than I thought.”

John spread his legs so that Sherlock could have better access, and Sherlock didn’t disappoint; he ran his pointer finger over John’s cock, from the base to the tip, causing him to twitch and swell. Wanting to encourage Sherlock further, John slid the robe off his shoulders and bent his knees. Finally, Sherlock backed away to take in the sight of John attired in the knickers he had chosen especially for him. John, who was now clad in Sherlock’s imaginings, caressed by them.

* * *

The G-string that John wore now was part of an assortment of various panties that had been purchased as a result of several days of careful shopping. It exceeded Sherlock’s greatest expectations. Just like the style he had first envisioned, the front of the panty covering John’s prick was a plain swath of satin, which was even now showing a damp spot. There was lace trim at the edge and even better, Sherlock knew, in an improvement upon his first design, the back was only composed of a thin silk mesh that ran from the small of John’s back to disappear in a gentle string that would tease over his hole.

There was nothing for it but to plant his face enthusiastically into John’s groin and commence licking and suckling at the sensitive bits under and poking out of the panty, cupping his hands under John’s thighs to help keep him parted. Sherlock groaned as he ran his tongue over the delicate fabric covering John’s crisp dark blond hairs, and he thrust his hips futilely into the air.

“Yeah, oh, god, please,” John begged, writhing, “suck me, suck me…fuck, Sherlock, put your fucking mouth on me...”

Sherlock obliged him at once, putting his lips around the tip of John’s cock as it peeked over the panty, applying soft pressure, and then he pushed John’s dribbling cock onto his stomach with his tongue. Sherlock wanted more of this, more of this magnificent tactile extravaganza. He pressed his hand over John’s panty-covered cock and ducked lower to take John’s bollocks into his mouth, soaking the fabric completely. There was the faintest taste of detergent, but underneath, there was nothing but smooth fabric sliding over his tongue and John’s salty skin, all John. He nosed at John’s balls and moved his hands to push John up by his thighs so that every last bit of him could be exposed to Sherlock. _Holy hell_ , Sherlock thought, the rest of the panty held John in place so well that his perineum and pucker were readily available for a good tonguing, and the vulnerability of the area was only emphasized by the velvety string of the panty that did so little to cover it.

Sherlock felt euphoric, dazed, as if he were having an out of body experience, so much so that he almost missed the squeak that John let out as he slid his tongue around and around his hole, until he could press inside that tight channel and feel John contract around him. Sherlock kept tongue-fucking John until he became blearily aware of several erratic thumps on his head, and rose from his ministrations to find a plastic bottle being pressed into his hand. John was sprawled out, _wrecked_ on the bed, legs splayed open, his lightly-furred chest covered with sweat, and his face a blotchy red. The entirety of the knickers were soaked by Sherlock’s saliva and John’s precome, darker by an entire shade than the blue robe which John was still lying upon.

Sherlock slicked his fingers up and watched as John pulled his cock completely out of the panty to stroke it quickly. His pupils were wide and dark, and he let out a low moan as Sherlock slid two fingers into him at once, around and underneath the back string of the knickers.

“Aww, fuck, just like that,” John gasped, and Sherlock chuckled darkly as he watched his lover writhe. Sherlock adored the absolute filth and eventual incoherence that he could induce from John by gently rubbing a fingertip over and over his prostate, and he did so now.

“Your fingers, your fucking long beautiful fingers, could write a book about them, god, fuck, they feel so good, love, fuck, like that, oh fuck, oh fuck, fuck…”

John started to twitch around Sherlock’s fingers, and the sensation made his cock ache and ache, and selfishly, he wanted to stop to masturbate. But John was incredibly close and Sherlock wanted so much to see him make a mess of himself. “Come on them, on the silk, I want you to come while you’re wearing them, perfect, yes, come on, John, come on…” And even as he spoke, John bucked wildly and came all over himself and the panties.

Sherlock hummed in desperation - John would have insisted that he whined - and gripped his own demanding cock with the hand not buried inside of John. John, his own perceptive and oft-underestimated John, opened his eyes and gently removed Sherlock’s fingers. John gave him a dirty smirk, and curled Sherlock’s hand around his prick for him, tugging to indicate that he should continue jerking himself off.

“Yeah, do it, you want to, put it on me, Sherlock, like that, you look amazing, fantastic, you’re brilliant,” John praised, digging his fingers into the muscles of Sherlock’s arse, rubbing gently along his cleft, and Sherlock decided then and there that he wanted John to fuck him when he was wearing the panties, thinking of what style would suit John best while he slammed into Sherlock, so that he could rub his hands over the panties covering John’s arse and could come on John’s stomach and it could run into the knickers and they could make the silk wet with both of them and they could come into them together all over the silk all over each other all over --

“That’s it, baby, just like that, just like that,” John soothed, and Sherlock shook and covered John in thick, white stripes so that the knickers were well and truly claimed by both of them.

* * *

“You’re thinking very loudly,” Sherlock mumbled into John’s shoulder. John responded by chuckling, which jiggled his shoulder against Sherlock and made him smile in turn.

“Yeah, thinking about how fucking hot that was.”

Sherlock rumbled out a laugh and nodded in agreement. “But that’s not all,” he said.

“No,” John replied. “I saw some other things in the shops that I really liked.”

“Oh, er, yes?”

“Mm-hmm. There was this garter belt, and I thought it would go really well with silk stockings, the type with the seam down the middle.”

“What color was the belt? Was there a panty to go with it?” Sherlock asked breathlessly.

“It was this deep, dark red, I guess crimson, you would call it. And no,” John continued, “there’s no need for you to wear them with knickers. They would just get in the way of you fucking me, although heels would be a nice touch, I suppose.”

**END**

**Author's Note:**

> I've actually had this story in mind for quite a while. I wanted to write a scene where there was a miscommunication between two characters about a kink, and the idea of lingerie just seemed to fit.
> 
> I also enjoy thinking about John’s wide stance. If he were to wear knickers, I think he'd like the ones created with men’s genitalia in mind. I'll admit that I spent a good deal of time conducting research over at hommemystere.com.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, comments and concrit are always welcome.


End file.
